Towards palm-size autonomous helicopters

muFly EU project started in 2006 with the idea to build an autonomous micro helicopter, comparable in size and weight to a small bird. Several scientific and technological objectives were identified. This spanned from system-level integration, high efficiency micro-actuation, highly integrated micro vision sensors and IMUs and also low processing power navigation algorithms. This paper shows how most of these objectives were reached, describing the approach and the role of each partner during the whole project. The paper describes also the technological developments achieved like the 80 g, 17 cm micro robotic-helicopter, the 8 g omnidirectional and steady-state laser scanner, the uIMU, the highly efficient micro motors, the high power-density fuel-cell and the successful graph-based navigation algorithms

Design and analysis of a GaAs-based 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with different doping in the reflection regions

The present paper deals with the analysis of a non-oxide type of vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) for operation at 850 nm. The modeling and characterization of the VCSEL is presented in the context of design considerations. Efforts are made to emphasize the behavioral features of the proposed VCSEL, in view of the analytical investigation, which has been performed through a series of simulations for various relevant parameters that are vital for the determination of the VCSEL characteristics. Some of these parameters are the intensity and refractive-index distributions, gain response, spontaneous emission, material gain variations, etc. The results obtained are compared with the oxide-confined VCSEL. It is observed that the proposed model of the VCSEL is suitable at the operating wavelength of 850 nm